A Global Church Gathering?

Back in February the IF:Gathering hosted its 10 year anniversary conference at Dickies Arena in Fort Worth TX. At the Conference, Mrs. Allen announced a new vision of a global church gathering, encouraging the hundreds of thousands of women to spread the word and participate in. She calls it Gather25.

Quoting from the Gather25 website, they state this:

Through live-streaming technology, the Global Church will connect together for prayer, worship, repentance and commissioning. Each continent will host a portion of the 25 hours. There will be stories told of what God is doing on each continent. There will be powerful times of worship. And there will be a worldwide “sending out” of the workers to the harvest.

https://www.gather25.com/about

A global church gathering sounds exciting. Bringing the church from all of the major nations together to worship, pray, repent, and commission them is not only unprecedented but is something that, at first glance, may seem to be a move of God.

I’m always hesitant about the supposed great moves of God. I wonder about certain movements” being more of a work of man, motivated and directed by our own efforts and desires, than being an actual work of the Holy Spirit. And if you have read Revelation, gatherings and movements like this should wave a red flag.

Here are some of my questions and concerns.

Extra Biblical Revelation Through Voices and Dreams

There should definitely be some questions that arise regarding this “dream” of Jennie Allen’s.

Just like the beginnings of the IF:Gathering, Jennie is receiving extra biblical revelation and instruction through a “voice from heaven” and now through dreams and vision. This should definitely make you weary. Why hasn’t this voice ever told her not to preach over men in the local church gatherings? Why hasn’t this voice warned her of the many false teachers she’s platformed at the IF:Gathering? The Holy Spirit, from His written word certainly has. Perhaps this is a deception and should have been tested. But now she’s receiving dreams which are encouraging her to spread the IF: Ministry even farther.

Not only is the dream of this global gathering given from a woman, it is promoted and offered to hundreds of thousands of women. Women who will go back to their local church to urge the Elders of their congregation to get involved in this gathering. 

A gathering being put together because of a dream of Christ’s return and Jenny’s belief that the universal church is failing.

Jennie Allen’s Gathering and Commissioning, Not Christ’s

At the 2023 IF:Gathering, Jennie claimed that God called her to commission those attending ( “What if Jesus Comes Back Soon?”). We should be very clear here. Leaders/ Pastors are not to commission the Church into some new instructions. Their job is to equip the church, through the preaching and teaching of God’s word, to do what Christ has already commissioned us to do.

Jennie Allen’s dream in April of 2022 brought her to ask “what if Christ returns in 10 years?”. She feels that if He did, based on what the universal church is doing now it would not be enough. Here she implies that the church is not doing what it is supposed to do. To fix this she feels God wants her and other teachers like her to commission the global church to live as if Christ was coming back soon. 

Yes, the visible church is not doing what it’s supposed to do but the invisible church is. The invisible church is not called to do something unprecedented or new to reach people with the Gospel, they are called to be faithful to his word; to live each day as if Christ would return tomorrow not 10 years from now. 

How do we do that?

Christ’s word calls all to repent and believe in the gospel, to cut off sin in their life, trust in His finished work, and walk by faith daily, and as we do that we go and make disciples (Matt.28:19). That can be for some women a call to go to other nations or out to society for full on ministry, but for most women who have husbands and children, our making disciples will involve our children and is done as we are walking and being faithful right where God has placed us. 

Jennie Allen’s commissioning is an urge to do more than repent, believe, walk, and make disciples. It is a call that the social gospel makes as it urges you to change the world. And this unprecedented commissioning by Jennie Allen and her ilk will and has put a burden on women. It really makes the instructions given to women by the Holy Spirit (to focus on ministry to our homes, and to be faithful to our nearest neighbors) the problem with the church today. Isn’t this what she is implying, that God would not be pleased with those who simply do what Scripture tells them?

Especially Christian women who desire to exault Titus 2.

Why do I state this?

Because of Jennie Allen’s stated belief that if Jesus came back He would be disappointed. She feels that something unprecedented and new needs to happen to fix this or she wouldn’t be setting up the Gather25 event. I state this also because whenever she talks at the IF: Gathering it is always about “doing more”, she wants women to be more like her, serving and equipping an entire generation, instead of serving our husband and equipping our children. 

Along with herself, most of the women who Jennie platforms are what she identifies as “power houses”, who have other popular ministries like hers, who usurp authority like she has, and preach to other women about purpose, neglecting the role God has called women to and proclaiming a special role given to them by God to serve society in some unique way. 

God did not leave his women without instruction. He makes it clear in Titus 2:3-5 that older women are to disciple the younger to love their husbands and children, to be self-controlled, pure, working at home, kind, and submissive to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be reviled. The study and application of God’s word to these roles and acts of service to our family are how we honor and obey God’s word. 

Jennie Allen and the other teachers at the IF:Gathering will literally point to the Bible on stage and claim it is our guide. But what it says about what women are to be discipled to do, that is furthest from the IF: Ministry’s goal. Instead you get this sense, by the presentations and the lives of the teachers platformed there, that mission work apart from the home should be our first priority- mission work, I would add, meant to show love, not call out sin and give Christ crucified. Mission work centered on making life better for people now, instead of mission work that would save people from the wrath to come by pointing out their sins, calling them to turn from them, and proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ.

Move From Women’s Ministry to Egalitarian Global Church Ministry

Held at the same time, early spring, that IF:Gathering usually holds its conference, encompassing about the same period ( a 24 hour period) of time, it seems to me to be IF: Ministry’s move from a women’s conference with an extremely light complementarian position to a full on egalitarian position; exalting female teachers and giving them a platform to teach over men. IF: Gathering will continue, but now the IF:Ministry will take it to the world. This will give all the female teachers involved in the IF:Ministry an open door to full congregations. And those congregations who go to the IF: Parachurch ministry for discipleship resources will open themselves up to mysticism, psychotherapeutic techniques and tools such as the enneagram, the social gospel, and Critical Race Theory.

Jennie Allen’s False Unity

…there will be a worldwide “sending out” of the workers to the harvest. 

https://www.gather25.com/about

Jennie Allen’s and the other vision casters involved in this online assembly make it clear that they will be commissioning those who participate in this global gathering. Gather25 will be a uniting with churches and denominations that proclaim false gospels.

The harvest are those in the world who would hear the Gospel of Jesus Christ and believe. In Matt. 13:24-43 there is an understanding that the good seed grows up along with the weeds. Yet, Gather25 will have workers who plant different seeds (a different Gospel) and therefore harvest weeds. We should be hesitant to unite with churches that plant seeds of false gospels. 

Christ’s commissioning of workers for the harvest were His disciples. Men whom He taught. The workers of the harvest had been trained by Christ, taught His doctrines and commands, and were commissioned to disciple others; teaching them ALL that Christ had taught and commanded them. It is with His teachings that He is wanting these men to plant and harvest with. Included in His teachings he directs His workers to root out false teachers and false teachings. Gather25 has no intention of rooting out false gospels such as the mystical gospel, the gospel of purpose, the health and wealth gospel, or the social gospel. All of which are gospels perpetuated in the wider evangelical sphere.

At one point we may have been able to say that most denominations claiming to be evangelical would at least hold to the essentials of the faith; but now we have several denominations that claim to be evangelical but don’t hold to the essentials. They have disregarded such essentials as God as Trinity, Jesus’s divinity and humanity (the hypostatic union), the exclusivity of Jesus Christ, the sinful nature of man, Christ’s penal substitutionary atonement, and the doctrine of Sola Scriptura. Each of these is necessary to support salvation by faith ALONE. Because pastors and elders abandon these, we have denominations that claim to be evangelical yet act and speak more like the liberal church.

There is just something that puts me off about any man or woman who seems to receive a voice from heaven asking “what if Jesus returns in 10 years?” and then making the conscious effort to gather the global church to commission them. They will not only be worshiping with those who hold to these false doctrines and gospels, but by Jennie Allen also a commissioning with “workers of iniquity”, accepting them as disciples as well. Gather25 will perpetuate a false unity in the visible global church.

To me Gather25 hints of the ecumenical one world religion. Only time will tell, but a global gathering of the visible church, that is open up to all sorts of denominations will only slip into opening its doors to other world religions. Bad company corrupts good character (1 Corin 15:33) as leaven leavens the whole lump (1 Corin 5:6), and false teaching spreads like gangrene (2Tim 2:17).  But it especially reeks of doubt in Christ’s commissioning and Christ’s sovereignty of building, and gathering His church His WAY at His TIME. 

Scripture is clear that when Christ returns there will be a harvest which will involve the separation of the weeds and the wheat; or as Jesus informs us in Matt 25:31-33, a separation of His sheep from goats. When Christ returns, there will be a harvesting of His elect separating the Invisible Church from the world. It will be a gathering of His spotless bride, and it will be global. Any man made global gathering will not be a gathering of the spotless bride because it will have people who call Jesus Lord but were never really known by Him (Matt 7:21-23). 

When we study the Church (ecclesiology) we see that there is an infiltration of the Church with false gospels, doctrines and teachings, brought in by what Scripture calls wolves in sheeps clothing (Matt 7:15). This warning is given only a couple of verses before he explains that there will be people who call him Lord, do mighty works in His name, but will not actually know Christ. Because of this, ecclesiology makes a distinction between God’s elect and the global church. They call God’s elect the Invisible Church, and the Global Church, the visible church.

Yes, Gathering25 will be made up of denominations that hold to Scripture alone but also ones who reject the Scriptures as complete, sufficient, authoritative,and inerrant. It will be a uniting in worship, some denoms that teach false gospels and doctrine of demons with those that hold fast to the Gospel and Christ’s instructions. 

A False Unity That Leads Many to Different Gods

There’s one last thing that came to mind as I was jotting down my notes. I thought of God’s instructions to the Isrealites on discerning false prophets in Deut 13:1-5:

“If a prophet or a dreamer of dreams arises among you and gives you a sign or a wonder, and the sign or wonder that he tells you comes to pass, and if he says, ‘Let us go after other gods,’ which you have not known, ‘and let us serve them,’  you shall not listen to the words of that prophet or that dreamer of dreams. For the LORD your God is testing you, to know whether you love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul. You shall walk after the LORD your God and fear him and keep his commandments and obey his voice, and you shall serve him and hold fast to him.  But that prophet or that dreamer of dreams shall be put to death, because he has taught rebellion against the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt and redeemed you out of the house of slavery, to make you leave the way in which the LORD your God commanded you to walk. So you shall purge the evil from your midst.

Prophets were the way God communicated with his people. And in this passage we can glean a couple of things from what God warns them about false prophets here. First, there were false prophets or dreamers of dreams that produced signs and wonders that came to pass. Second, we are told that if that happens we are to test the “god” behind the teachings. Is the prophet, who has performed a sign or wonder and it came to pass, is that prophet leading people to a different god?

 Do those at IF: present the same God as the God of Scripture? 

Well, the god they present seems, to me, to be ok with them preaching and teaching over men; not the God who says He wants a woman to remain quiet and not hold authority or teach over men. The god they present wants them to find their purpose more than fight their sin. Their god wants to communicate with them through still small voices, spiritual nudges, emotion, and intuition more than rely on the written Word to guide and equip them day by day. Some of the teachers at IF: present a god who wants social justice instead of biblical justice. Some present a christ who died to bring social & racial liberation. Some teach that we can know him through knowing ourselves and others instead of knowing Him from Scripture…see where I’m going here. God is clear. And to Him this matters. Why? Because prophets, and I add teachers, who present a different god make [their disciples] leave the way in which the LORD [their] God commands [them] to walk (Deut.13:5).

Prophets who have dreams and visions and produce signs and wonders but lead the people to a different God were sent as a test to see just how well the people knew the true God and see if they would hold fast to the instructions God gave them to walk in. So if the teachers at IF: present different gods then their gods will bring them to walk differently then Scripture tells them to walk. 

This is my biggest concern. And this is why we need discernment when it comes to the IF:Ministry and the teachers involved. 

What should we think about all this? What do you think about what Jennie Allen’s doing and where she is taking the IF:Ministry? Before any local congregation should get involved in Gather25 we should talk about these issues.

And I pray we do.

To listen to more on this you can go to the “Gather25? Questions & Concerns” podcast episode or watch on the Thoroughly Equipped YouTube Channel: “Gather25? Questions & Concerns”.